


Unless His Heart is a Metaphor for His Heart

by SpaceJackalope



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Bondage, Corvo Attano!Juno Steel, Dirty Talk, Dishonored AU, I love this event, Light BDSM, Other, Romance, Rope Bondage, Shadowy tendrils used as rope, Smut, Tentacles, The Penumbra 2020 Valentacular Spectacular, continuing to be surprised by how seriously I took what was essentially a dare, literal body worship, making a booty call using a shrine a stranger made to your crush, supernatural powers, the Heart!Benzaiten Steel, the Outsider!Peter Nureyev
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:22:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22707661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceJackalope/pseuds/SpaceJackalope
Summary: Juno Steel, who walks in vengeance and shadows.The Outsider, his patron god, with sharp teeth and no name.Turning their hands and tongues to tender use.
Relationships: Jupeter - Relationship, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77
Collections: The Annual Penumbra Valentacular Spectacular





	Unless His Heart is a Metaphor for His Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day y'all

“My dear Juno, you find your way into the most _int_ -er-es-ting places.”

“Shut up.”

The Outsider pouted theatrically, a laughing look in his wholly black eyes. “If you didn’t want to talk to me, you wouldn’t have gone to such great lengths to get my attention. ‘Oh, looks like there’s a shrine in that direction,’ said the Heart I pocketed and gave to you, and you said ‘Oh, twist my arm’ and used my other gifts”--he caught Juno’s hand between both his own, caressing the Mark seared into the back, squeezing lightly when Juno’s fingers trembled--“to ascend five stories and break into a dead occultist’s hidden chamber, all so you could get on your knees for me.” He kissed Juno’s hand. “Well. I suppose it isn’t a desire to _talk_ you’re signalling.”

Juno sighed like he was easing himself into a warm bath. “You’re infuriating.” The Outsider hummed assent. “It’s a very low shrine,” he added, pink tinting his cheeks. The Outsider was puzzled for a second, before realizing this was Juno’s way of protesting that he was not kneeling for any other reason than to easily scoop up the carved whalebone disks he’d found singing on the plinth. Still, Juno had _remained_ kneeling at his feet for the duration of this conversation, face heating while the Outsider bent over him and teased him, with no effort to stand or pull away. 

He felt a sudden need to sit down himself, so he did it, planting himself gracefully on the little shrine like his knees weren’t buckling. He brushed imaginary lint off his black velvet trousers. “Come sit on my knee and tell me what’s on your mind,” he said, with a wicked little smile, and to his shock, Juno did. His skin was warm, and he smelled of fancy soap and heinous brandy. He put an arm around Juno’s waist to keep him secure. Juno put an arm around his shoulders, seemingly more to have somewhere to put it than with any clear intent, and made a small sound of frustration. He didn’t seem to know how to use his voice, now that he’d found himself here.

“You hardly need my permission, if you’ve realized you need to extend your list of targets, my dear detective. Nor will you incur my censure if you find your hands bloody.”

“My hands are already bloody.”

The Outsider clicked his tongue. “So a politician killed himself, and another was killed by their own henchwoman--you didn’t kill them.”

“I arranged for their downfalls. It doesn’t feel like a great deal of difference.”

“My sweet, I saw each possible future as you took your vengeance on a walkabout, and there is a world of difference between the lady you are and the lady you could have been. I, at least, am grateful you’re not fleeing on a ship and drinking your way through insomnia while you picture the faces of your dead friends.”

Juno tensed, and the Outsider privately regretted saying anything at all. “I think,” Juno said softly, “I think I have you to thank for that, then.” He pulled a face, very deliberately meeting the Outsider’s eyes. “I’m usually better at this,” he said apologetically, and the Outsider was, all in a rush, delighted and embarrassed and envious and possessive and _hard_. He sucked Juno’s earlobe into his mouth and curled his tongue when he wiggled and cried out. 

“I need to hear you say it aloud, Juno,” he whispered. “Why you sought me out.”

“Because Benzaiten pointed out that I’ve been an idiot.”

The Outsider let out a puff of laughter. “Dearest, I hope that isn’t your height of specificity, or we’ll never get anywhere.”

Juno groaned. “I dunno, you’ve gotten pretty far along on vague insinuations.”

“ _Ju_ no.”

“It’s my pulse, yeah? You make me feel alive. You make me feel…” The Outsider nipped his jaw lightly. “You make me feel seen, and soft, and precious--when all I’ve been doing lately is hardening my heart and keeping to the filth and shadows.” He clung to The Outsider’s shoulders, body still and eyes peacefully shut, but he breathed as though he’d been running.

The Outsider took his free hand and brought it up to very tenderly cradle Juno’s cheek. “Look at me,” he ordered, and Juno did, blinking frequently against the intensity of the moment. “Juno Steel, I am going to fuck you until _every_ inch of your skin bears the marks of my touch. You won’t see them,” he promises, “but you’ll run your fingertips over your skin, and you’ll burn with the memories, and anyone who knows what to look for will know you have been _favored_ above any mortal for centuries, and then I shall come to you again, and again, for as long as you crave me.”

Juno shivered and tried several times to speak before he managed a mild, laughingly embarrassed, “Not in front of my brother.”

The Outsider’s eyes flicked to the Heart, nested carefully in a scarf on top of the bureau the occultist stored her forbidden books in. “It’s only a small piece of Benzaiten,” he said sadly.

“I know, but it’s enough to--” Juno shook his head, suddenly realizing what the Outsider was really trying to say. “It’s enough to help me feel less alone.” He kissed the Outsider’s forehead softly. “Now, are you going to whisk me away somewhere private, or do I need to get out my appointment book?” 

“Hold on tight,” the Outsider replied, and once Juno had wrapped his other arm securely around his neck, he rocked backwards, sliding into the Void, falling through space, until they stopped, suspended in nothingness. There was a whale above them, gliding through the neither-water-nor-air, and making even the Outsider feel almost small. Juno looked at him in awe. He thought it would be nice to be gentlemanly with him, ease him onto his back like a delicate maiden. “Hang on,” he murmured, “I’m sure I’ve got a bed around here somewhere.”

Juno laughed. “I hardly think it’s essential.”

But the Outsider had found what he wanted, drifted their bodies like swimmers into a shard of not-rock with a bed on it, a fine quilt on the top and a nightstand with books, a drawing of Juno and a small rabbit pinned to its side with sleep darts. “Oh,” the Outsider said shyly.

“It’s not like I didn’t know you’ve been in my bedroom,” Juno fired back, but that wasn’t it--it was the unexpected gooey feeling in the Outsider’s chest that left him on his back foot. Their feet connected with the ground, but the Outsider didn’t give Juno a chance to get used to it, placing a hand on his lower back and dipping him backward until he lay flat on the bed. 

“Tell me what you want, Juno,” he whispered, bracing his own body over him. 

Juno looked at him like he’d said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “I want you to _kiss_ me.” The Outsider didn’t bother easing into it, catching Juno’s mouth still open on the word _me_ and sliding his tongue in possessively. Juno made delicious noises of approval, body going pliant. The Outsider broke the kiss only when he felt Juno struggling for breath, and shifted his lips to Juno’s throat. 

“Oh, you lovely thing.” Juno’s pulse was racing like pinioned prey, but he held the Outsider’s hand to his chest like it was the most important thing he’d ever done. The Outsider had not had a pulse for millenia. He nuzzled against the side of Juno’s neck. “I adore you, pet.” 

He sat up, straddling Juno’s hips, and disentangled their fingers so he could manhandle Juno out of his clothes. He pushed the coat off and pulled the sweater up, mouth watering at the thought of biting little kisses along Juno’s ribcage, and eager to unfasten his pants--and Juno jumped. The Outsider followed his line of sight to Juno’s lap, where two black tentacles of shadow and willpower were working at Juno’s fly. The Outsider bit back a giggle. “Would you like me to put them away, darling?”

The tips of Juno’s ears turned from a pink undertone to red. “N-no. So long as they’re _you_.” 

The Outsider ran his thumb across one of Juno’s pierced nipples, dragging a tentacle across the other. “They certainly are.”

Juno made a motion like he was trying to see the Outsider’s back. “Where do they--how are they--”

“Don’t think about it so literally, my dear.” He wrapped two thick tentacles around Juno’s biceps and pulled him up and back so he could use his hands to finish the job of stripping off his lower half. “There now,” he purred, “aren’t you _pretty._ ” Juno tried to turn his face into the pillow. The Outsider gave his inner thigh a small pinch. “None of that, now. When a god takes you to bed and calls you pretty, you don’t disagree.” Juno valiantly turned his face back and tried to meet his eyes. The Outsider shifted up the bed to run his thumb across Juno’s lower lip. “Tell me what you want, pet.”

Juno squirmed, tongue flicking against the Outsider’s thumb. “Whatever you want--”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“No, no, I’m telling you. I want you to do _whatever you want_ to me. Or at least for it to feel like it.”

The Outsider drummed his fingers on Juno’s collarbone. “Did you know, Juno,” he said conversationally, “that sometimes people who want my attention will offer me sexual favors? Build a shrine and masturbate on it, or before it, screaming my name as they come? Or they’ll host orgies, a tangle of bodies, aroused and open and feverish for me? Cults and covens and clubs will place the most beautiful person they can recruit on an altar, surrounded by candles and herbs and careful markings of chalk, with which they hope to entice me to appear and fuck their proferred beauty, and so bless them with second sight, or a prophecied child, or the ability to Blink and Shadow Walk and command battalions of sewer rabbits.”

Juno whimpered. “Do you?” he breathed out.

“No. I don’t. From time to time, they get psychosomatic results, enough to fuel the idea that such a thing works.” He kissed Juno’s face. “But all you had to do,” kiss, “was to be morally outraged,” kiss, “and brave,” kiss, “and clever,” kiss, “and it did not hurt your cause that you are beautiful as well.” A long, lingering kiss on his lips. “What I am trying to say, Juno, is that you are very dear to me.” Juno screwed up his face like he might cry. “You’re not here for a transaction, or an agenda, and if you want me to restrain you and use you like a needy offering, I will do it lovingly.” At that, Juno did start crying. The Outsider kissed his forehead. “Still on board, then?”

“Yeah. God. Please.”

“Which god are you addressing?” He teased, all teeth and raised brows. 

Juno rolled his eyes. “It’s just something people say when they’re about to get railed.” He chuckled, the tears abating. He paused. “I’m not sure I can call you ‘Outsider’ in bed.” 

“I’m sure you can come up with something appropriate,” the Outsider smirked, crossing Juno’s wrists above his head.

Juno gave him a cool, haughty look. “Well, I’m not calling you ‘sir.’” The Outsider cackled, surprised by his own reaction. It was easy to be light-hearted with Juno in his arms. 

“I don’t even know my own name, if that’s what you’re asking. You have it written on the back of your hand. Maybe if you assemble a team of scholars and work for a few decades you can find something to tenderly whisper in my ear.” Juno gave him _such_ a look at that, and the Outsider could not believe there was anyone in the world who would think an eldritch god of whalesong and unsavory secrets needed to be protected, or comforted, and yet--“My dear Juno, you do keep surprising me.” He brought his face close, and let Juno kiss him while he vanished his own clothing and wound tentacles around Juno’s limbs.

“You’re beautiful,” Juno whispered against the Outsider’s jaw. “Please, can I look at you?” So the Outsider gripped Juno securely in tendrils of shadow, and lifted him up while he lay down, so Juno could feel manhandled even while surveying the Outsider reclining like an elegant nude etching. He knew what he looked like; he could have been carved from whalebone himself, and his hair and eyes were as dark and indefinite as spilled ink. Eerie beauty had worked well enough for him, these past centuries, and it plainly suited Juno’s desires to a flattering degree--he cursed and shivered and drank in the sight.

The Outsider pushed himself off the bed like a swimmer pushing off a pool wall. He pressed against Juno’s chest, skimming his hands along chest and ribs and shoulder blades while using his tentacles to firmly tug Juno’s shoulders up and back, lace his legs bent and parted. “I’m going to use your mouth,” he decreed, “and then your ass, and you’re going to be as noisy as you please, and come as many times as you like.”

Juno dimpled with devastating charm. “I’m not that young anymore.”

The Outsider snorted. “You’re being fucked by a god, pet, give me some credit.” Juno stuttered, eyes wide. “As many times as you like,” The Outsider repeated, sing-song. “No need to hold them off by thinking about ads for jellied eels. Just let the pleasure wash over you.” He kissed Juno’s jaw. “Sound like a plan?”

Juno made a happy sound. “I’d like that.”

“Such nice manners,” the Outsider teased, before putting his mouth on Juno’s throat and sucking hard enough to bruise. “Open your pretty mouth.” Juno did, with a glint in his eye that said he knew exactly how irresistible he looked, and made flattering noises of contentment as the Outsider slid into him. The Outsider held his head still and made slow, deep thrusts, Juno curling his tongue and humming his active satisfaction. When the Outsider pulled away, Juno strained forward after him. 

The Outsider laughed, not meanly, and rebound Juno’s hands to the front of his torso. “Touch yourself, Juno.” He sat cross-legged on nothing, eyes level with Juno’s. “Tell me how you thought about me when you were lonely and in denial.” He let a tentacle brush sweetly across Juno’s cheek. 

Juno, after a moment’s experimentation, found a comfortable angle to wrap his bound hands around his erection, and met the Outsider’s gaze without a hint of shyness. “I thought about sitting on your lap a lot.” 

“You mean like earlier?”

Juno smiled broadly. “No. Not like earlier.”

The Outsider wrapped a hand around himself and gave a long, easy pull. “I see.”

“I also thought about this--you watching me, while I watch you.”

“What wonderfully synchronous minds we have.”

Juno’s eyelashes fluttered with emotion. “Mostly, I imagined you kissing me, and--and holding me. I felt like you were keeping me safe, and I needed to be held,” he confessed, in a rush. 

The Outsider gave him a gentle smile. “Come for me, and I’ll hold you.”

Juno laughed and wiggled in his shadowy restraints. “You’re already holding me.”

“Ah, well, if having my arms around you is such a _dull_ prospect--”

Juno interrupted him with a little growl and stroked himself faster.

They came more or less together, and the Outsider drifted to pleasantly collide with Juno, wrapping his arms around him as promised and rubbing his back. “Beautifully done, my dear.” He released Juno’s hands to let him reciprocate the embrace, which he did, tentatively running his fingers through the hair at the nape of the Outsider’s neck. The Outsider kissed his temple. “Tell me when you have your breath back, and I’ll roll you over and open you up.”

Juno let him know by dragging the Outsider’s lower lip through his teeth. The Outsider scraped his teeth playfully over Juno’s cheekbone before rolling him and catching his arms in tentacles. “Put your cheek against the ‘ground,’ Juno,” he instructed, binding his arms and supporting his hips with his hands, guiding him into the position he wanted. 

“I’m not sure I can hold this with my arms behind my back.” The Outsider scoffed in response. “Right, right, give you _some_ credit, I know.”

The Outsider gave him a light swat on the ass. “I think I might have even invented this,” he mused. “Holding a lover where I want him, lighting up his thighs and nipples and spine with my touch, while my hands are nowhere near him.” Juno shook gratifyingly at the smooth slide of the Outsider’s tentacles. He opened surprisingly easily for a pair of fingers. “Juno, darling, did you _finger_ _yourself_ before coming to find me?”

Juno whimpered. “Might have done.”

“Whatever for?”

A little flick of his tongue across his lips. “I kinda thought you would pin me to the floor and fold me in half without much conversation.”

“Did you, now?” The Outsider was amused. 

“The, um,”--he gasped sharply--“uh, the story goes that you don’t mess around when you’re minded to stake a claim. Not that I’m not feeling _sufficiently_ dominated right now, but, uh.”

“But you weren’t expecting me to be _thorough_ ,” the Outsider laughed, adding a third finger.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be _nice_ about it.” The Outsider held that up next to the admission that Juno had fantasized about being held by him, and planted a warm, soft kiss at the base of Juno’s spine. 

“Well. Considering that I’ve been pouring adoration into your ear, I hope I’ve rather surpassed being a _nice_ fuck.”

Juno hummed in agreement.

“With words, beloved.”

“Oh! Ohhhh, you--you’re touching me _everywhere_ , and it feels like I’m going to scream, it feels so good, and I don’t know what to focus on, there’s too much _to_ focus, and, and, damned if I know how you’re doing that with your fingers, I’ve _seen_ your fingers, they’re delicate and pretty but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so full, and we haven’t even _gotten_ to your cock yet, I’ve never seen such a perfect cock, I’m going to think about it all the time now, you know--when someone says ‘Outsider’s crooked cock!’ when they’re mad, I’ll have to bite my tongue so I don’t tell them what it’s really like, I can’t believe this is happening, I love you, I…” And he realized what he’d said and fell silent, which made the Outsider think Juno had severely downplayed his own choices of words.

He wrapped his hands around Juno’s hips and bent over him, lips hovering above Juno’s Marked hand, securely on show at his back. “Say it again, lovely,” he coaxed. 

“I love you?”

The Outsider kissed his hand. “Again.”

“I love you.” And this time, when the Outsider kissed his Mark, Juno exhaled: “Nureyev.” 

The Outsider was so shocked he nearly lost his balance. 

“I don’t--I don’t know how I did that.” 

The Outsider, Nureyev, let out a strangled laugh. “The Void plays tricks even on me, from time to time.”

“Is it--may I use it?”

“Yes--oh, yes, love. I’m going to bring you off with my hands now, just because I want to watch your face, and then I’m going to fuck you into jelly, and I cannot express how welcome you are to scream my name while I do so. You could use it to hurt me, but we both know you won’t.”

He did not, in fact, scream Nureyev’s name. Instead, Juno exhaled it like it was the softest, greatest endearment he knew, when the black-eyed god made him come with one hand one his cock and the other stroking his insides; when the Outsider buried his cock inside him and kissed the space between Juno’s shoulderblades; when Nureyev murmured obscenely to him about how _good_ he was being and made him come; and when the tentacles released him into his lover’s gentle arms.

Nureyev did not put the tentacles away, using them to plant small, sweet touches to Juno’s skin, while he shuddered and panted, gripping Nureyev’s hand until the intensity burned off. “Thank you,” Juno finally said, muffled against Nureyev’s collarbone. Nureyev giggled, open-hearted.

“Thank _you_ , sweetness. You’re wonderful, a paragon, the most fascinating and extraordinary thing.” He squeezed Juno tight. “Let’s get you into bed.” And the Outsider did a motion that made Juno’s brain hurt, twisting his own gravity so that Juno was left reclining in the air like a stage magician’s assistant, while Nureyev pulled back the covers on Juno’s bed. Juno was only mildly surprised to realize they were in his real bedroom, with four walls and an oil lantern casting Nureyev’s shadow on the wall. It was odd to think of him even having a shadow. 

His body was gently descended into the bed and the blankets pulled up. He was clean, somehow, some magic he had missed, and the Outsider fully dressed. “I’ll be right back, Juno,” he promised, before disappearing through a door and reappearing with a large mug of tea and honey. This thoughtfulness felt like a greater miracle to Juno than the fact he managed to descend three flights of stairs and make tea in the newly reopened pub without being seen. “Drink up, pet, or you’ll be hoarse tomorrow.” Juno neighed sarcastically, and drank. The Outsider vanished again, this time into thin air, and returned almost before he could be missed, gently placing the Heart in the nightstand drawer and Juno’s scarf on a clothes hook.

Juno dreamily tapped his fingers against the nightstand. “Night-night, Benten.” He turned his face towards Nureyev. “I don’t have much longer with him, do I?”

“A heart cannot survive in this world, with nothing to shield it. It’s too intense. I wish it were otherwise.” 

“I know the feeling,” Juno laughed softly. Nureyev gave him a soft, deep kiss. He reached out and turned off Juno’s alarm clock. 

“Sleep deeply, love. I’ll see you again soon.”

“Do I have to find another shrine for next time?”

Nureyev gave him an arch look. “You _could_ make your own, you know.”

Juno peeked at him through his eyelashes. “Now, there’s a thought.” He yawned. “I could have you every night, if you were on call like that.”

“Good _night_ , Juno,” Nureyev laughed, snaking out a tentacle to brush against the bruise he’d kissed into Juno’s throat. “I love you.” And he stepped through the open window into nothing, and was gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Richard Siken's "The Language of the Birds." https://poets.org/poem/language-birds
> 
> I love,,, The Penumbra Podcast and I love Dishonored. 
> 
> I ALSO love my friends and our very excellent Valentine's Day tentacle fic event. 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as https://cartograffiti.tumblr.com/ and on Pillowfort as https://www.pillowfort.social/jackalope


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